The story on how we were born:
As anyone who is in love with the leaf can tell you, we are all on a journey, you never stop learning. The more tea you sip, the more people you speak too…the more you grow as a tea leaf enthusiast. The tea world isn’t short on new surprises! In this blog I will briefly examine how we got onto our team journey to start with and where we are now.
Back in the days when I only knew how to make a strong Builders I went all out in Harrods and bought a few tins of loose Black. This was a ‘layer cake’ moment, I discovered that not all Black teas were equal, that there was an opportunity to explore a new world of flavour. I particularly enjoyed the blend (two parts Darjeeling one part Assam) with a touch of milk! When I met my wonderful wife Mrs G and inevitably accompanied her to Hong Kong things got a little bit more interesting. During dim sum it is very customary to drink a ripe Puerh tea with the meal. If you haven’t had it before restaurant grade right can be a little bit of a murky experience, I quite enjoyed it actually!
It wasn’t until a tourist trip in Guangdong where we stopped as part of our route to an orchid farm. Now those who have travelled through Rurel parts of China as a foreigner or likely completely understand the reasons why this next thing happened. As soon as I got off the bus with all the Torres we were shuffled in to the orchid phone. The tourist guide was explaining in Cantonese all about the orchid flowers and plants. She then tried to Asher all the tourists along for a closer look around the farm as she did so the orchid from owner waved at me and shouted in Cantonese are you come here she then tried to Asha all the tourists along for a closer look around the farm as she did so the orchid farm owner waved at me and shouted in Cantonese “hey you come here’ he sat me and Mrs G down on a beautiful solid wood tea table. One of those tea tables that way about a ton and made from one piece of wood, truly remarkable feat of craftsmanship I may add! You see you don’t get many white dudes in China at all this guy was curious on where I was from, what I was doing random I’m just wanted to know more about me, he wasn’t really interested in me buying any of his orchids! He swiftly started to brew up some Jin Guan Yin Oolong. This tea is across hybridisation of Tie Guan Yin and Huang Jing Gui, still one of my favourite all-time teas, probably because of this experience. Would open a 7 g vacuum sealed packet brew the tea up in a gaiwan with very long, strong infusions. He was only getting three infusions out of every packet. This made the tea very strong in flavour and feeling. This was my first first acquaintance with proper tea and I will never forget it!
After more research and discovering more about tea I then decided to set up ‘The Tea Guru’. I was very naive at this point I had no idea how much work was needed in order to be successful with an e-commerce site. I actually thought that I could set up a team business have a website, had a sprinkling of social media coverage and what we have in stock and that will be that people would come to the store….nooooo! Let me tell you, I’ve set up several service related businesses before this. I have put in four times the effort for half the reward compared to my previous pursuits. What kept me going in those early years was passion, I could see growth but it was very very slow to start. Anyway I’m glad I persevered and we are here today with a thriving store I have met so many cool people along the way and still do!
Everyone is on their own journey, some have been on longer than others but everyone is learning, you never stop learning. The day you stop learning is the day you stop growing.